Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 2 of 7

by Edgar Thurston

“‘The other statements of this charter, especially the authority over the five castes, must be explained according to the ancient times, customs, and habits of the people of Malabar, and need not be taken into consideration here. Whether this charter has in reality been granted to the Jews or not, it is certain that not at any time has a Jew had great authority over his co-religionists, and still less over the so-called five castes. Moreover, the property of the Jews has never been free from taxes, notwithstanding the fact that the kings to whom they were subject appointed as a rule as heads of the Jews men of their own nationality. They were known by the name of Moodiliars, who had no other authority than to dispose of small civil disputes, and to impose small fines of money.

“‘There is, however, a peculiarity, which deserves to be mentioned. Although, in the charter, some privileges are granted, which were also given to other people, yet to no one was it ever permitted to fire three salutes at the break of day, or on the day of a marriage feast of one who entered upon the marriage state, without a previous request and special permission. This was always reserved, even to the present day, to the kings of Cochin only. Yet up to now it was always allowed to the Jews without asking first. And it is known that the native kings do not easily allow another to share in outward ceremonies, which they reserve for themselves. If, therefore, the Jews would have arrogated to themselves this privilege without high authority, the kings of Cochin would put a stop to this privilege of this nation, whose residences are situated next to the Cochin palace, but for this reason, I suppose, dare not do so.’”

Various authorities have attempted to fix approximately the date of the copper-plate charter. Mr. Burnell gives 700 A.D. as its probable date. The Rev. G. Milne Rae, accepting the date as fixed by Mr. Burnell, argues that the Jews must have received the grant a few generations after the settlement, and draws the conclusion that they might have settled in the country some time about the sixth century A.D. Dr. J. Wilson, in a lecture[48] on the Beni-Israels of Bombay, adopts the sixth century of the Christian era as the probable date of the arrival of the Beni-Israels in Bombay, about which time also, he is inclined to think, the Cochin Jews came to India, for their first copper-plate charter seems to belong to this period. There is no tradition among the Jews of Cochin that they and the Beni-Israels emigrated to the shores of India from the same spot or at the same time, and the absence of any social intercourse between the Beni-Israels and the Cochin Jews seems to go against this theory. In one of the translations of the charter obtained by the Dutch Governor Moens, the following words appear: “Written by the Secretary Calembi Kelapoor, in the year 3481 of the Kali-yuga (i.e., 379 A.D.).” This date does not appear, however, in the translations of Gundert, Ellis, Burnell and Oppert. The charter was given in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of the donor Bhaskara Ravi Varma. And, as all, except the last of the foreign Viceroys of Kērala, are said to have been elected for twelve years only, Cherumān Perumāl, reputed to be the last of Perumāls, who under exceptional circumstances had his term extended, according to Malabar tradition, to thirty-six years, may be identical with Bhaskara Ravi Varma, who, Mr. Day says, reigned till 378 A.D. Mr. C. M. Whish gives a still earlier date, for he fixes 231 A.D. as the probable date of the grant. In connection with the claim to the antiquity of the settlement of the Jews in Malabar, it is set forth in the Cochin Census Report that they “are supposed to have first come in contact with a Dravidian people as early as the time of Solomon about B.C. 1000, for ‘philology proves that the precious cargoes of Solomon’s merchant ships came from the ancient coast of Malabar.’ It is possible that such visits were frequent enough in the years that followed. But the actual settlement of the Jews on the Malabar coast might not have taken place until long afterwards. Mr. Logan, in the Manual of Malabar, writes that ‘the Jews have traditions, which carry back their arrival on the coast to the time of their escape from servitude under Cyrus in the sixth century B.C.,’ and the same fact is referred to by Sir W. Hunter in his ‘History of British India.’ This eminent historian, in his ‘Indian Empire’ speaks of Jewish settlements in Malabar long before the second century A.D. A Roman merchant ship, that sailed regularly from Myos Hormuz on the Red Sea to Arabia, Ceylon, and Malabar, is reported to have found a Jewish colony in Malabar in the second century A.D. In regard to the settlement of the Jews in Malabar, Mr. Whish observes that ‘the Jews themselves say that Mar Thomas, the apostle, arrived in India in the year of our Lord 52, and themselves, the Jews, in the year 69.’ In view of the commercial intercourse between the Jews and the people of the Malabar coast long before the Christian era, it seems highly probable that Christianity but followed in the wake of Judaism. The above facts seem to justify the conclusion that the Jews must have settled in Malabar at least as early as the first century A.D.”

At Cochin the Jews enjoyed full privileges of citizenship, and were able to preserve the best part of their religious and civil liberty, and to remain here for centuries unseen, unknown, and unsearched by their persecutors. But, in the sixteenth century, they fell victims by turns to the oppression of fanatical Moors and over-zealous Christians. “In 1524, the Mahomedans made an onslaught on the Cranganūr Jews, slew a great number, and drove out the rest to a village to the east; but, when they attacked the Christians, the Nayars of the place retaliated, and in turn drove all the Mahomedans out of Cranganūr. The Portuguese enlarged and strengthened their Cranganūr fort, and compelled the Jews finally to desert their ancient settlement of Anjuvannam.” Thus, with the appearance of a powerful Christian nation on the scene, the Jews experienced the terrors of a new exile and a new dispersion, the desolation of Cranganūr being likened by them to the desolation of Jerusalem in miniature. Some of them were driven to villages adjoining their ruined principality, while others seem to have taken shelter in Cochin and Ernākulam. “Cranganore,” Mr. Adler writes, “was captured by the Mahomedan Sheikh or Zamorin in 1524, and razed to the ground. The Rajah Daniel seems to have previously sent his brother David to Europe to negotiate with the Pope and the Portuguese for an offensive and defensive alliance against the Zamorin. Anyhow, a mysterious stranger, who called himself David Rubbeni, appeared in Rome in March, 1524, and, producing credentials from the Portuguese authorities in India and Egypt, was received with much honour by the Pope, King John of Portugal, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth in turn. After some years he fell a victim to the inquisition, but his failure and non-return to India are more easily explained by the fact that he was too late, and that the State he represented was no longer existent, than by the cheap assumption of all our historians, including Graetz, that he was an impostor with a cock-and-bull story. Whether the famous diary of David Rubbeni is genuine or not is less certain. But I have elsewhere sought to re-establish this long-discredited ambassador, and here limit myself to drawing attention to his name, which seems to have been David Rabbani. To this day David is one of the commonest names among the Cochin Jews, as well as the B’nei Israel, and Rabbani is the name of the ruling family under the copper grant. Its alteration into Rubeni was due to sixteenth century interest in the lost ten tribes, and a consequent desire of identifying the Royal family as sprung from Reuben, the first-born of Israel. Reuben, too, is a favourite name among the B’nei Israel. With the destruction of their capital, the Jews left and migrated, though to no great distance. Within 20 miles south of Cranganore are four other places, all on the Cochin back-water, where the Black Jews still have synagogues. Parūr, Chennan Mangalam, and Māla have each one synagogue, Ernākulam has two, and Cochin three, of which one belongs to the White Jews. The Parūr Jews have also the ruins of another synagogue marked by a Ner Tamid, which they say existed 400 years ago, when there were eighteen Botē Midrash (schools) and 500 Jewish houses. This tradition further confirms the importance of Cranganore before 1524. With the advent of the Dutch, better times ensued for the Jews. The Dutch were bitter foes of the Portuguese and their inquisition, and friends of their enemies. Naturally the Jews were on the side of the Dutch, and, as naturally, had to suffer for their temerity. In 1662 the Dutch attacked the Rānee’s palace at Mattāncheri and besieged the adjoining town of Cochin, but had to retire before Portuguese reinforcements. The Portuguese therefore burnt the synagogue adjoining the palace, because they suspected the Jews, no doubt with justice, of having favoured the Dutch. In the following year, however, ‘the Dutch renewed their attack on Cochin, this time with complete success. The port and town fell into their hands, and with it fell the Portuguese power in India. By a series of treaties, Cochin and Holland became close allies, and the Dutch settlement became firmly established in Cochin.’ The Dutch helped the White Jews to rebuild their synagogue. The Dutch clock is still the pride of Cochin Jewry.”

It is well known that the Cochin Jews are generally divided into two classes, the White and the Black. Writing in the early part of the eighteenth century,[49] Baldæus states that “in and about the City of Cochin, lived formerly some Jews, who even now have a synagogue allow’d them without the Fortifications; they are neither White nor Brown, but quite black. The Portuguese Histories mention that at a certain time certain blasphemous papers against our Saviour, with some severe reflections against the Jesuit Gonsalvus Pereira (who afterwards suffer’d Martyrdom at Monopatapa) being found in a box set in the Great Church for the gathering of Alms; and the same being supposed to be laid there by some European Jews, who now and then used to resort thither privately, this gave occasion to introduce the Inquisition into Goa.” It is noted by the Rev. J. H. Lord[50] that “Jacob Saphir, a Jewish traveller, who visited his co-religionists in Cochin in recent years, having described some of the Jews resident there as black, hastens to tone down his words, and adds, they are not black like the raven, or as the Nubians, but only as the appearance of copper. But Hagim Jacob Ha Cohen, another modern Jewish traveller, chastizing the latter for calling them black at all, declares that he will write of this class everywhere as the non-white, and never anywhere (God forbid!) as the Black.” The Black Jews claim to have been the earliest settlers, while the White Jews came later. But the latter assert that the former are pure natives converted to the Jewish faith. These two difficult, yet important, issues of priority of settlement and purity of race have divided antiquarians and historians quite as much as they have estranged the two classes of Jews themselves from one another. According to the Rev. C. Buchanan,[51] the White Jews dwelling in Jews’ town in Mattāncheri are later settlers than the Black Jews. They had only the Bible written on parchment, and of modern appearance, in their synagogue, but he managed to get from the Black Jews much older manuscripts written on parchment, goat’s skin, and cotton paper. He says that “it is only necessary to look at their countenances to be satisfied that their ancestors must have arrived in India many years before the White Jews. Their Hindu complexion, and their very imperfect resemblance to the European Jews, indicate that they had been detached from the parent stocks in Judea many ages before the Jews in the West, and that there have been marriages with families not Israelitish.” The Rev. J. Hough observes[52] that the Black Jews “appear so much like the natives of India, that it is difficult at first sight to distinguish them from the Hindu. By a little closer observation, however, the Jewish contour of their countenances cannot be mistaken.” In the lecture already referred to, Dr. Wilson states that “their family names, such as David Castile (David the Castilian) go to prove that they (the White Jews) are descended of the Jews of Spain, probably of those driven from that country in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of German and Egyptian Jews. The real ancient Jews of Cochin are the Black Jews’ descendants, we believe, of Judea-Arabians and Indian proselytes. Some rather obscure references to the Jews of Cochin and Quilon are made by Benjamin of Tudela, who returned to Spain from his eastern voyage in 1173. He found no White Jews in India. Speaking of those in the pepper country near Chulam (Quilon), he says that all the cities and countries inhabited by these people contain only about 100 Jews (members of the synagogue), who are of black colour as well as the other inhabitants.” Referring to Jan Linschoten’s ‘Itinerary,’ published in Holland in 1596, Mr. Adler observes that “the Jews who interested our traveller were the ‘rich merchants and of the king of Cochin’s nearest counsellers, who are most white of colour like men of Europe, and have many fair women. There are many of them that came of the country Palestine and Jerusalem thither, and spoke over all the exchange verie perfect and good Spanish.’ This directly confirms the view that the White Jews were new comers from foreign lands. Their knowledge of Spanish is now quite a thing of the past, but it proves that they were Sephardim.”

In regard to the claim of the White Jews to being the only genuine Jews, it may be of interest to record the opinion of a Jew, Rabbi David D’Beth Hithel, who travelled in Cochin in 1832. He says that “the White Jews say of them (the Black Jews) that they are descendants of numerous slaves who were purchased and converted to Judaism, set free and carefully instructed by a rich White Jew some centuries ago. At his cost, they say, were all their old synagogues erected. The Black Jews believe themselves to be the descendants of the first captivity, who were brought to India, and did not return with the Israelites who built the second temple. This account I am inclined to believe correct. Though called Black Jews—they are of somewhat darker complexion than the White Jews—yet they are not of the colour of the natives of the country, or of persons descended from Indian slaves.” This passage bears reference to a tradition current among the Black Jews that they are the descendants of the Jews who were driven out of the land of Israel thirteen years before the destruction of the first temple built by Solomon. They are said to have first come to Calicut, whence they emigrated to Cranganūr.

“The White Jews,” Mr. Adler writes, “claiming that they, and they alone, are the true descendants of the aboriginal Jews of Cranganūr, retain the copper tablets in their possession, and boast that, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Rājah of Cochin invested the head of the Hallegua family with the hereditary title of Mudaliar or Noble [and a wand with a silver knob as a sign of his dignity], with the power of punishing certain crimes. The males of that family still bear the title, but their feudal rights have been abrogated. Nowadays the number of White Jews has dwindled to less than 200, so that it was easy to procure a list of all their names. From the foreign origin of their surnames (Kindel, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Koder, Roby, Sassoon), as well as for other reasons, it seems certain that the White Jews are late comers, who did not settle in India till after the destruction of Cranganūr. They were traders, who came to Cochin; they prospered under the rule of the Dutch, and built their synagogue and quarter after the Black Jews were already established there. Though, now, they hold themselves jealously aloof from the Black Jews, they were at first quite intimate and friendly. The Indian environment has had the opposite effect to that which England has had upon our Ashkenazim and our no longer exclusive Sephardim. In India caste is varna, which means colour, and their difference in colour has produced caste distinctions among the Indian Jews. But, although the White Jews are fair, some of them are certainly not quite white, nor are the Black Jews quite black. Some of the ‘Black’ Jews are hardly distinguishable from their ‘White’ brethren. Their customs, ritual, and religious observances are the same. Their synagogues are so alike that it needs some keenness of eyesight to detect that two pictures are not of the identical building. The only great (?) difference is that the White Jews have theirs tiled with rare old blue tiles, over which newspaper correspondents wax eloquent. They say the tiles are old Dutch, but really they are genuine Chinese [blue and white Canton China],[53] whereby hangs a tale. The synagogue was built nearly 200 years ago in a corner of the Rājah’s palace-yard. At that time, the Dutch were in possession of what is now British Cochin, and they were the only people trading with China. The Rājah, through his allies the Dutch, had imported a large quantity of the best China tiles to pave his Darbar hall, but the Jews, says Mr. Thurston, thought they would just do for the synagogue they were building, so they told the Rājah that he could not possibly use them, inasmuch as bullock’s blood had been employed in their manufacture. His Highness, much perturbed at the indignity to so sacred an animal, bade them take the tiles away, and never let him see them again. Hence their presence in the synagogue. The other synagogue has tiles also, but they are of gleaming white.” The synagogues, it may be added, are square whitewashed buildings, surmounted by a bell-tower. It is said that the Kadyabagan synagogue of the Black Jews is admitted by the White Jews to be the oldest at present existing, having been built in the 12th century.

It is recorded by Governor Moens that “in the Jewish quarters (situated) next to the palace of the king of Cochin at Cochin de Sima there are two synagogues, viz., one for the White Jews, and the other for the Black Jews. The latter have readers of their own tribe, who hold the services, but, when a White Rabbi comes to their synagogue, the honour of conducting the service must be given to him.”

“The dates,” the Rev. J. H. Lord writes, “of the synagogues of the Black Jews altogether antedate those of the White. Thus, the date on the mural slab of the now disused and dilapidated Cochin Angadi synagogue is A.D. 1344 = 563 years ago. That of the Kadavambagom synagogue in Cochin is A.D. 1639, or = 268 years ago. That of the Cochin Theckumbagom synagogue is A.D. 1586, or = 321 years ago; while that of the synagogue of the White Jews is A.D. 1666 or = 241 years ago. Hence the institutions of the Black Jews are the more ancient. The tomb-stone dates of the Black Jews are also far more ancient than those of the White Jews. The earliest date of any tomb-stone of the Black Jews is six hundred years old.”

It is further noted by the Rev. J. H. Lord that “the Black Jews are still the ones who make use of the privileges granted in the copper-plate charter. They still carry a silk umbrella, and lamps lit at day-time, when proceeding to their synagogue on the 8th day after birth of sons. They spread a cloth on the ground, and place ornaments of leaves across the road on occasions when their brides and bridegrooms go to get married, and use then cadanans (mortars which are charged with gunpowder, and fired), and trumpets. After the wedding is over, four silk sunshades, each supported on four poles, are borne, with lamps burning in front, as the bridal party goes home. The Black Jews say that the White Jews use none of these, and never have done so. The White Jews aver that they were accustomed formerly to use such privileges, but have discontinued them.”